It has become common for truck owners to customize their truck by providing decorative wheel covers, typically made of chrome or stainless steel, to enhance the attractiveness of the central portion of a wheel. Typically, such wheel covers are provided from after market sources, and truck manufacturers do not manufacture their truck wheels with mounting brackets to facilitate the attachment of such wheel covers. As a result, the most common method for attaching such wheel covers is to provide a plurality of space holes around the central portion of the cover to receive the studs to which the wheel is attached. For such wheel covers, the lug nut which attaches the wheel to the vehicle also retains the wheel cover against the wheel.
Certain problems have arisen as a result of the attachment of wheel covers by fitting the wheel cover under the lug nut used to retain the wheel. The lug nuts of truck's wheels, for example, are typically tightened with hydraulic tools, therefore neither the wheel nor the cover can be easily removed. In certain states, for example California, state official may make spot checks of truck wheels for cracks in the wheel webbing, and such checks cannot be undertaken without first removing the wheel cover. Where the wheel cover is retained under a lug nut, such an inspection will require that the truck be taken off a road to a service center, which will result in a considerable delay and inconvenience to the truck operator.
It would be desirable, therefore, to provide a bracket which would attach to the wheel of a truck and into which a wheel cover can be attached without removing the lug nuts which retain the wheel to the hub of the truck to attach or detach the cover.